December
by imaweshum
Summary: What happened in December.


December

Her body felt stiff and awkward. Unfamiliar. The knees curled tightly to her chest were aching. She had been sitting on that same tree stump under the canopy of evergreens for what felt like hours, how long it had been she didn't care. 

Charlie had left especially early that morning; he rarely ate breakfast at home anymore. She had pretended to sleep when he opened her door gently; lying motionless in her bed after that same nightmare had come to haunt her. She dressed quickly, needing to escape the room where she used to spend the night wrapped in his arms. 

She had rushed outside, flinging the door shut behind her, breathing heavily. Daylight would not come for a long while, the longest night of the year was only days away. The air was bitter and thick with the cold; you could almost reach out and touch it. It knocked the wind out of her lungs as she gasped for air to slow her wild heart. She stumbled in the darkness towards the even darker forest.

The trees had swallowed her slight frame as she found the familiar opening in their branches. It was warmer. The winds didn't dare disturb the forest. The air was pregnant with serene warmth. The path was worn, she had traced it often. 

"Bella…I don't want you to come with me."

She sat motionless on the stump as it echoed all around her, always, just louder here. She longed to go deeper and stay forever, to spend her life searching that forest for the honey of his breath, or the outline of his feet. She was afraid. To venture in again since she was found would be to disturb any last trace of him there might be to cling to. 

How long had the snow been falling around her? She wouldn't be able to tell, she simply stared intently into the dense shield of evergreens, sacrificing only seconds every time she dared to blink. 

When it had first started falling in huge clumps she was seized by panic. 

Her heartbeat raced, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, as she grew short of breath. She slid of the stump and began madly swatting at the invading flakes, willing them to stop. Instead the sky responded by sending her more as they sailed through the sky and assaulted her being.

"It will be as if I never existed."

The other echo. Just as quickly the beat slowed down. It returned once again to its morose thump…thump…thump…until she couldn't even hear it anymore and instead sat back down. Even nature it seemed wanted to keep Edward's promise as it began to wipe any lingering trace of him from its forest. 

She noticed it was getting lighter around her. She risked mere seconds and inclined her head back to stare at the tree tops. Daylight was coming, and the falling snow had dwindled down to sparse flakes dancing on the wind.

She stared at the snowflakes that had covered her body with loathing as she felt their cold seep in, an entirely different cold. Unwelcome. 

Her eyes darted back towards the trees across from her, and instantly she was blinded. She squeezed her eyes shut, lowering them towards her knees as she clutched them more tightly to her. Slowly she began to pry open her eyes and look out once again, overwhelmed by the brilliance surrounding her. 

She guessed it then. She knew before she saw. She knew that Forks would be waking up to one of very few sunny days as she watched the sun's rays dance across the snow. The covered ground was brilliant. Each flake sparkled like a jewel, a delicate diamond.

The dull ache inside Bella began to throb as she watched the diamonds twinkle and wink under the sun's rays.

The sun's rays didn't reach her where she sat. She raised her arm, reclined her head, and began to laugh wildly. The snow that covered her looked bulky, dull, and grey, nothing like the pinpoints of light in front of her.

She swiveled her body around and fixed her eyes once again on the dark of the forest. She slid off the stump. Taking great care to avoid the sunlight, she moved forward back into the darkness, towards her path.

She pictured her own dull, grey, arm again, and her own voice echoed through the trees.

"You…don't…want me?"

Some of us just aren't meant to shine. 


End file.
